Random Observations

• People live with their parents loooooong past age 18. Our teacher is probably around 50 and lives with both her mother and her own children. Our sisters are 22 and 24 and they both still live at home. Most people go to college close by so they can stay living at home. I think it is both a culture thing and a money issue. Or maybe it became a culture thing because it saves money. I don´t know, but it is cool how much emphasis is on the family and relationships. (Not that I would still want to live at home, or am planning to do so.... :) )
• There is a chain of donut stores called ´American Donuts´. When we saw it, I said ¨I´ve seen stores for American Clothing, American Music, and now they want American obesity?!¨ Steph said, ¨Yeah, someone should tell them it´s not as glamorous as it looks.¨ Haha.
  
• The city has been buying a bunch of brand new buses. Right now the buses cost 1 or 2 quetzales per trip, so the bus drivers always have a ton of cash. Apparently, there have been gangs in the evenings that will go around and rob the bus drivers. The new buses are made so that people swipe a charge card when they get on, in an effort to prevent the robberies. The government doesn´t have enough money or the capabilities to let everyone get cards right now, so there are only a few of the new buses. We can´t get cards anyway, since we´re not residents. Because there are new buses, there are less of the old buses, which means that people without cards have to wait longer to get a bus.
  
• No one cares about PDA. We see at least 5 couples making out per day! The culture is more affectionate in general than we are, which is fine, but sometimes I feel like it is a little excessive. Last week we had a bus driver, who looked 18, and had his girlfriend sitting in the seat next to him. When he´d stop to let people off, he would turn around and start making out with her! They are also not shy about making cat calls. It feels like we get 10 per day. I´m not sure if it´s because we´re American or just female, but we are so sick of it and groan everytime. It´s kind of frustrating because we are used to saying ´hi´to people and being friendly, but there are 2 or 3 groups of guys that we pass on the street every day that we feel like we almost have to ignore because we don´t want to give the wrong impression..
  
• Remember Tavo? The band we saw play the first week we were here? Sandy had dated the lead singer´s brother, so she and Diana wanted to go see them. They told us that the band was fairly famous here, whatever that means. We met him and he introduced us to the crowd and gave us a free CD. Well, a couple weeks ago we saw a celeb gossip magazine on the rack by the checkout at the supermarket.. and it had his picture kissing a pregnant woman´s belly, with some headline about him having a child. Kind of sad, but I guess they like celeb gossip as much as many Americans.